Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday August 11, 2013 @05:12PM
from the like-a-sticky-enveloping-fog-of-goo dept.

SmartAboutThings writes "It seems that Microsoft is relying even more on the opportunities provided by the cloud technology. The Redmond behemoth is preparing to come up with a cloud operating system that is specially meant for government purposes. Government agencies already use two of Microsoft's basic cloud products: Windows Azure and Windows Server. But now it seems that Microsoft is working on a modified version of its somewhat new Cloud OS that could bear the name 'Fairfax.' Compared to Windows Azure, the 'Fairfax' cloud operating system would provide enhanced security, relying on physical servers on site at government locations. Given that CEO Steve Ballmer is striving to make Microsoft much more than a powerful software giant, such a project makes sense, especially because it would help in their lobby activities."

It's "Cloud", as in cloudy thinking, I'm guessing. It's cloud in the sense that you aren't allowed to know what the government is doing. It's cloud in the sense that Microsoft is not doing well lately, and is desperate for an easy contract for expensive stuff, paid by taxpayers.

Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database.

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

"Microsoft hired a group of developers from Digital Equipment Corporation led by Dave Cutler to build Windows NT, and many elements of the design reflect earlier DEC experience with Cutler's VMS[16] and RSX-11."

I am guessing you do not have a lot of experience with federal government IT?

I have several years of experience with federal government IT. This sort of thing is entirely normal. Federal IT projects tend to be crazy over-budget, and way behind schedule. Then the projects get canceled, and the process starts all over again.

The one thing that "software for money" has yet to proved is the protection of users privacy. What is the shakedown fee imposed by closed source software that guarantees non-disclosure? Today it seems that even if you pay for privacy some for profit business will eagerly take more to reveal information.

Indeed, but they are billed differently. Server software is a one-off purchase -> you buy it, you own it; cloud software is 'software as a service,' meaning that, among other things, you're renting the software, and paying a monthly bill to boot. Since most companies enjoy a three year upgrade cycle (they may skip upgrades, because they are unnecessary, or they save money), going with the cloud means they are potentially paying more. Now don't get me wrong, there are some benefits to the cloud: 1.) the s

Not only Microsoft collaborates with security agencies, any operating system has to be monitored by security agencies such countries.You can find basic support possible to protect your privacy (the user) with possible toys and useful free tools.But keep in mind that most online services will help close possibly under pressure from governments.Greetings. )

I'm not advocating the "cloud", but it should be considered in ones analysis that hardware is a constantly changing playing field and has changed radically since the '70s. Something that was less efficient or inefficient then might be perfectly fine or even desirable in 2013. In the '70s serial data throughput was extremely limited. As that becomes less and less true schemes that were slow then might have no noticeable impact on the systems of today. In some cases one might see a substantial performanc

The primary concern of the US government seems to be that NSA employees will defect to the American public. Snowden has been charged with espionage for spying on our behalf, so I think we're officially the enemy.

The primary concern of the US government seems to be that NSA employees will defect to the American public. Snowden has been charged with espionage for spying on our behalf, so I think we're officially the enemy.

Of course US citizens are considered the enemy by the US government. That's been true since at least the 1930s, if not earlier.

The nice thing about this MS/Fed deal is that the need for people like Snowden will be greatly reduced. If their shiny new system is made by MS, any script-kiddie with Wireshark, Backtrack, etc will be able to pwn it.

I'm just not looking forward to all the additional v14gr4 and stock spam that will come from places like the FBI, NSA, DoJ

A fairer way of rephrasing the last line might be "such a project WOULD make EVEN MORE sense IF it helped them in their lobby activities." The disadvantage being that it begs the question "How does selling software or any products to the government help in lobby activities?"

Ah..... I remember the days of playing Half Life on a 233Mhz computer with probably 256Mb of ram and not a single hiccup in the graphics. Now days I'm running 1.9 - 2.4 Ghz with 4-6 Gb of ram and my computers seem to have trouble dealing with even simple FPS games with slightly better graphics.

I don't get it. How do they call it "in the cloud" if the servers are located on-site? Isn't that what we started with decades ago –– a server and dumb terminals (er, excuse me, a thin client)? And storage is so cheap these days!

Yes, it's safer to have everything physically in-house (or securely co-located). But, what I can't fathom is how any of the purchasing-department types and manager-types fall for this "new" setup that offers no advantages. It's just handcuffing your company to that one vendor.

/CSB: At a former company, upper management studied options for getting off of Lotus Notes, the biggest heap of crap I've ever seen. The conclusion of their expensive study was that, "We can't afford to get off of Lotus Notes. The change-over would be too expensive."

I think IBM got wind of the study, and raised their price even more for the next renewal.

A "cloud" is nothing more than a distributed set of clusters coordinated to perform a task or tasks. There is nothing architecturally spectacular about placing some nodes at a customer's own site vs. something like Amazon or IBM clouds where they have data centers scattered around the world.

The problem is too many people think "cloud" has a specific architectural meaning. It does not. It's more a means of managing VM and physical nodes in groups of clusters, with the capacity for shifting loads and data from node to node at the push of a button (or at the behest of automated tuning and load balancing services.)

It's not magic.

Mainframes were doing "cloud" processing in the '80s, and so was VMS. The only difference nowadays is network transport capability has grown to replace the specialized buses those older systems used, and allow for a greater physical distribution of the nodes than those old technologies did.

Kids.

They think because someone came up with a new buzzword that they've "invented" something.

The real innovation of Cloud is not in the technology, where it is just a bunch of stuff that already existed brought together with some improved networking. The real innovation is in the business models enabled by it, both for providers and customers. Super short-term rent of remote hardware while hiding all the details of what is going on from the downstream consumers? That lets you do all sorts of interesting things that were wholly impractical before. Every time I see someone saying that the Cloud has n

It sure sounds like Microsoft wants to be like Big Blue, making their big bucks in consulting services. It seems to be working out okay for them, I'm not entirely sure Microsoft however can manage not to shoot themselves in the foot in trying it.

there was a document that went out from DoD about two months ago; a thin-client/zero-disk initiative architectural overview. DoD's (public) plan is to transition to a majority thin client IS (information system) inventory by 2020. the servers will be Enterprise assets (meaning, theatre-level) so those at different installations (on-the-ground administrators) will not have a choice. case in point, there are authorized security baselne configurations for redhat, centOS, and other *nixes. there used to be one for Mac, but it was discontinued (dunno why). even when Mac was legally usable on the DoD network, it and *nixes needed waivers and by-hand security configuration out the ass to be usable for any normal work. you dont have your email classification application (ones ive seen were windows-only outlook plugins), no group policy, no HBSS (at the time), etc. you had your choice of operating systems, but everyone used Windows.

i was very excited to read the DoD overview, we spend way too much money on what are basically the same computers over and over (no functional need to upgrade from the first 64bit core 2 duos we bought years ago aside from product end of life, but that can be worked out with the vendor if the DoD put some effort into it) except for the fact that we keep upgrading to the latest and greatest Windows and then shitting on it with banners, some inane (and some not) security crap, and local clients (HBSS, remote desktop, AV, SCCM, etc...). put a thin client on everyone's desk and instead of a team of soldiers endlessly patching windows vulns that SCCM didnt hit (likely the client shitting itself for no reason), you patch the master image and everyone is GTG. save money, save time (more money).

as a DoD civilian, i manage teams of soldiers and am responsible for their work. this is my problem to deal with when it arrives =\ would prefer to make our network more secure, more sustainable, for less cost (in products and man hours -it is very possible), but from working for the US Govt the past five years and seeing the inner workings, i know that very few people give a shit about saving money or improving processes.

they say they cant afford to pay us to come in five days a week while during that time people are sent back and forth to hawaii (airfare, hotel, per diem) for things a video teleconference could accomplish, among other extravagant wastes of money. its painful to see every day, i genuinely miss the time when i was ignorant to gross government waste of tax dollars.and our paychecks are cut 20% by working only four days a week (albeit this iteration is soon to end) for political theatre. if the hand is beating

they say they cant afford to pay us to come in five days a week while during that time people are sent back and forth to hawaii (airfare, hotel, per diem) for things a video teleconference could accomplish, among other extravagant wastes of money

On the point of video conferencing, it's not quite as good as that. Even leaving aside the technical difficulties (getting volume levels right seems to be the hardest thing) there are other problems. In particular, a video conference is rather more like a teleconference than a meeting in person; there are things that are just much easier to do face to face. It seems to be just how people work socially. What the video conference can do though is reduce the frequency of F2F meetings to the level required for

For fuck's sake, "cloud" is not a technology, it's the latest marketing scam to get everyone relinquish control of their devices and data to the modern equivalent of the mainframe.

Well of course. How else do vendors expect to monetize your data if it is sitting on your local machine in your posession? Now that computers are a commodity and there isn't any money to be made from selling hardware and software, they need to find something to charge for. In the past they charged you to use their program to create your data. Now they want to charge you to actually store and access your data.

It has nothing to do with the technology it is all about the money. Well that and the marketing to convince everbody that this is somehow new and better.

Marketing it may be, but insanely profitable it will eventually also be.

It will only take a few scandals of high-level CEOs / Chairmen having their privacy routinely violated, or their new patented drug stolen out from under their noses, for them to decide that they want their data somewhere 'close to home.' If / when this happens...which the tea leaves are pointing to...the cost for re-installation of servers / data centers locally will be quite profitable. As the president of one company I worked for like

I'm sorry that you took me seriously and have embarrassed yourself in this way. I thought the "naming Azure after the blue screen" would be enough for people to work it out, but it appears I need to attach a disclaimer or something.

Trillian: What are you supposed to do with a manically depressed robot?Marvin: You think you've got problems. What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't even bother answering. I'm 50,000 times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer.

...a cloud operating system that is specially meant for government purposes.

Cloud OS = vaporware, right? And an OS geared towards government would have to be slow, heavy, overly bureaucratic, doing things that you are not supposed to know about and sending information about your activities to somebody that you are told about - that's Windows, basically, isn't it?

Both companies still create a lot of hardware and software, but dont make truck loads of money in those sectors any more. Startups are more nimble at exploiting new computing niches. IBMs main revenue is from services.

I'm so glad your post is full of factual information. If it hadn't been for all of those well-researched sources and big tables of actual performance data, I'd almost think you were speaking directly out of your ass.